Why Did Urban Call for a Crusade in 1095?

In order to establish reasons for Urban’s call for a crusade in 1095, we need to look at many accounts of the time, and find out what was happening in the rest of the Christian world which influenced both what and when he said what he did to launch the first crusade. At the time, religion played a major role in almost everyone’s daily lives, and the belief system of the afterlife was extremely strong. It was true that every Christian had a very vivid sense of sin, and believed that if one committed an act of sin, their afterlife would be spent in hell. They all thought of this afterlife as a reality rather than an idea. It was this belief which would help Pope Urban II recruit more men. The aristocracy of the period also led a very violent lifestyle: this crusade or ‘Holy War’ justified the use of violence as a means of abolishing the threat from Islam on the Christian World. Thirdly, the papacy was very keen on consolidating its political influence in Italy, France and Germany. The papacy wanted to keep the Christian parts of the world as large as possible and they also wanted to make sure that these areas would be completely Christian. Urban wished to expand the Church’s sphere of influence to those previously Christian parts of Europe and Northern Africa which had been overrun by the Islamic world..

In March of 1095, the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus appealed to the papacy for military aid to help against increasingly hostile neighbours. In 1095 the Seljuk Turks had come within one hundred miles of Byzantium or Constantinople, and they were thought to be threatening Eastern Christians. It was at this point that Alexius summoned the pope’s help to rid the area of the ‘pagans’. It was Alexius’ call for help which provided Urban with a stable reason for launching the crusade.

Urban’s public call to launch the crusade was made when he addressed the council at Clermont. However this was not a...

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

...Whydid the First Crusade erupt?
The First Crusade was a monumental event of the 11th century, where thousands of ordinary people took up the cross to make the extremely long and perilous journey to Jerusalem to fight the ‘other’; the Muslim threat. Inspired by extreme devotion to God and His church, people made this decision based on a single speech.
Jonathan Philips argues that Pope Urban II’s speech in 1095 had managed to draw together a number of key concerns and trends, synthesising them into a “single, highly popular idea”, which led to the First Crusade. Described often as an ambitious politician, it is certain that the Pope intended this to happen, for various motives, and his audience were ready consumers of the information he proclaimed to them.
Pope Urban’s motives for his iconic speech in Clermont were largely restorative and ambitious. He wanted to restore Papal authority in the East, towards the Mediterranean, by recapturing the place known as the centre of the world, Jerusalem. The Holy Land had been taken from them 400 years earlier, so it would be fair to agree with Asbridge that the situation “hadn’t deteriorated significantly in the years before 1095”. It can be argued that the Pope was recycling old events, dressing them in inflammatory language to create the “explosive material” he needed.
Following in the footsteps of his ambitious...

...﻿Whydid people go on crusades?
In 1095, Pope Urban II called for an army to go to the Holy Land, Jerusalem. This was what was later known as the ‘First Crusade’. A crusade is a religious war or a war mainly motivated by religion. The first crusade consisted of 10’s of thousands of European Christians on a medieval military expedition to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims. This doesn’t mean that the first crusade was just motivated by religion. Throughout this essay, I will be suggesting the main reasons of why people went on crusades and which different people went for specific reasons and why.
There were a variety of reasons for going on a crusade. One reason was adventure. Many people, especially wealthy knights, would have gone on the crusade as an excuse to maim others without consequences. One source supports this as it tells us that the knights in Europe had very adventurous spirits meaning that they were always ready for a fight. Also, the knights once told by the church were ready to go on the crusades without “angering God” as the priests told them. Another source tells us “… the Franks did nothing evil to them [the women] except pierce their bellies with lances.” The Franks were a combination of tribes from Germany that migrated to...

...In 1095, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban ll made a powerful and well planned speech. His message was clear and precise, ‘go to the holy land in Jerusalem and claim back what is rightfully yours or die trying, and in return remission of all your sins with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the kingdom of heaven’. He was addressing Christians from all over France calling for a ‘Crusade’ in the name of God and as many would argue, abusing his authority and status he received from the Catholic Church. What occurred during the First Crusade is well known to many, whereas the reason behind Pope Urban ll calling the Crusade is a highly debated and contradicting issue.
One of the reasons which are occasionally cited for Urban’s calling of the First Crusade is the call of help which Alexins Comnenus had sent to Urban at the Council of Piacenza. This letter was sent in response to the loss of Byzantine land which had occurred after the battle of Manzikert in 1072. The letter When Urban received this letter it is debateable as to whether he was actually galvanised by the thought of helping Alexins or if his main motive was an attempt at ending the schism between the Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox church in Constantinople. This is likely as it was one of the ideals of the papal reform movement which Urban...

...﻿Whydid Pope Urban II call the first Crusade ?
There are three main reasons as to why Pope Urban II called the first Crusade. These reasons being ; Improving conditions in the west , Power to the church and the reunification of the Christian church. Although there are many reason that could have been said, I valued the three above to be the most important deciding factors to crusade.
Improving conditions in the west was a significant reason to call a crusade. The fear of hell and purgatory shaped the lives of Christians. Christian teachings were widely accepted even if their lives were not holy. They believed that Christ’s death and resurrection opened the way to heaven and would be granted forgiveness if they took penance. Images of hell were placed all over churches as a constant reminder of what was to come if they did not repent. Violence in society and sinful behaviour was at an all time high. In such a brutal society filled with violence this caused a big problem for the church. Calling a crusade would solve the issue of violence in the west as a need for vengeance was familiar to nobles of a feud filled society and sending them off on a crusade would send the violence elsewhere. Knights were told that if they crusaded they would be guaranteed place in heaven and as a...

...Jason Arnold
The Crusades
Liberty University
CHHI301
The Crusades
The Crusades are a big part of history, not just for the church, but for the world. This point in time showed the weakened state of the Romans and the power of the church over its people. There are good and bad things that came out of the Crusades; the heart of the people and the corruption of man. But where does the story start?
The call to fight started in November 27, 1095 during the Council of Clermont under Pope Urban II. Urban address the Council and sent his priests out to give sermons to motivate the people. This was in response to the Eastern Emperor Alexios’ request for help. Urban’s call was heard throughout the land that any man who went and fought to liberate the Holy Land would be forgiven of all their past sins, and those who could not fight gave money to the campaign would receive the same kind of forgiveness.[1]
The words “whoever wishes to save his soul should not hesitate humbly to take up the way of the Lord, and if he lack sufficient money, divine mercy will give him enough” and “brethren, we ought to endure much suffering for the name of Christ-misery, poverty, nakedness, persecution, want, illness, hunger, thirst, and ills of this kind, just as the Lord saith to his disciples ‘You must suffer My name’” were given by the priests to encourage people to...

...The crusade of Urban II
Pope Urban II was the key figure behind promoting the idea of Crusades. His appeal played key role in initiating the series of famous religious war historically known as the Crusades. Pope’s famous plea led to the formation of the very first group that marched towards Jerusalem to fight against the Muslim forces. Pope Urban II appeal was made in November, 1095 (Asbridge 1) calling for a Holy War against the Muslims and to liberate Jerusalem. The Crusade thus initiated continued for a few centuries involving almost the entire continents of Europe and Asia. Primarily, the appeal was made to provoke the French Knights to fight a war for the sake of Christian religion. In return, the Pope gave them a hope of “an unprecedented spiritual reward – the remission of all their sins – and thereby escape the torments of Hell, their likely destination after lives of violence and greed” (Phillips). Later the holy procession was joined by religious fanatics from Italy and Germany – some of them seeking religious and spiritual rewards while others were driven by monetary gains.
The first Crusade known as the People's Crusade left in 1096. More than 60, 000 Christians led by Count Raymond IV of Toulouse went marching towards the holy land to fight Muslim forces (Phillips). A large number of preachers and monks...

...invasion of areas in the Christian Byzantium Empire helped to arouse anger against Moslems. A sense of fear and urgency grew that something had to be done to stop Moslem territorial expansion and subjugation to the tenants of the Islam faith.
The first two Crusades were, without a doubt, the most important of them all. “The era of the Crusades is one of the most important in the history of Western civilization. When it began, western Europe was only just emerging from the long period of barbarian invasions that we call the Dark Ages” (Jordan 133).
These Crusades were the first time in western civilization that regardless of social status clergy, nobles, and peasants united in a common purpose. under the umbrella of Christianity. They united to stop the spread and controlling influence of the Moslem Empire. Many factors led to these crusades, and what happened during the course of them is unimaginable. The result of the Crusades had a profound impact during this period of history, there are still plenty of lasting effects on Europe and globally to this day.
How did the Crusades start? Voyages by religious believers to the Holy Land throughout early Judeo Christian history led up to the Crusades. The Holy Sepulcre in Jerusalem is the resting place for Jesus Christ after his death on the cross, and this is a common...

...CRUSADE
In the High Middle Ages, a manifestation of religious enthusiasm seized Europe in a series of crusades against the Muslims. These Crusades are important parts to the history in the middle ages. A Crusade was any of the military expeditions by the Christians in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries to recovery the Holy Land of Jerusalem from the Muslims. The Crusades were thought to be a curious mix of God and warfare, which were the two major concerns of the middle ages. Crusades were based on the idea of a holy war against the “infidel,” or a non-believer. Christians had a lot of animosity towards the Muslims; they planned to reconquer Spain from them. It was at the end of the eleventh century when the Christians of Europe discovered an opportunity to attack the Muslims. An immediate force that started the crusades was when the Byzantine emperor, Alexius I, asked Pope Urban II (1088-1099) to help fight the Seljuk Turks. The pope, of course, said yes because he saw it as an opportunity to provide papal leadership; first to rally the warrior of Europe for the liberation of Jerusalem and second the Holy Land from the Muslim infidel. Pope Urban II, at the Council of Clermont in southern France, challenged all true Christians to pick up their weapons and fight the infidel. He wanted them to join the “Holy War” to recover the Holy...